Saturday, April 28, 2007

Tracers, noise and fear

Something made me attach myself to one of our MG 42's (Maschinengewehr = machine gun), give it a clean and general look over. Then I went down to the street, where there were ammunition boxes left behind. I picked up a couple, making sure there were definitely no tracer bullets in them.

My best friend Albert Zucker wanted me to come along and see whether we could snatch a deserted Yankee vehicle, standing in the no man's land. We crawled along the edge of the road to get nearer. I was terrified with his idea, because the Yanks were unceasingly firing at this spot. We had to give up and crawl back. The same night the telephone cable needed repairs near that deserted vehicle. Here one of our telephone operators was killed. He was buried in front of a bush beside the road.

22.12.1944. Late afternoon a counter attack started. First there were bullets whistling through the air. This made me find a spot on the field, near the cannons with my MG 42. I made adjustments and waited. Our own big Guns started firing from behind. With a terrible mistake, they aimed too short. Now we got shot at from front and back. Pretty close too; causing quite a panic.

Tracer bullets were coming from spots on the opposite hill. It was time to act, aiming and firing a few rounds. There were no more tracers coming from that place. I repeated this action many times until no more tracers came from anywhere. This all went on until deep into the night. Somebody was looking for our NCO, who was hiding in a dug-out. The noise around was horrible. I prayed to God to please save me. God must have heard this non-believer down there, shaking in terrible fear.

To the right of us, in the bush, some soldiers started screaming. A mortar group suffered a direct hit. With explosions everywhere, this was real war. Finally it slowly ended. The attack had been repelled. After this I ended up in St. Vith in Belgium. One cannon went further forward, and the other stayed here; so did I. Talking about hair raising moments that waited for me; this was a town to be avoided.

My stay over night was in the house in which General Rundstedt had been before. His telephone switchboard was still operating in the garage. Here I found a spot in the corner of the garage, alongside the outside brick wall, to settle down. Discovering the surroundings, another Jabo (Jagd-Bomber = fighter-bomber) went for me, but he also must have aimed at something else. Next thing, I was standing in a house that had no cellar, when a bomber decided to drop his goodies. Not very nice, I can tell you.

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